The Importance of a Strong Community in the Blockchain Ecosystem

A blockchain-based project can't succeed without its community. Crypto communities are integral to any blockchain project's growth, awareness, adoption, and engagement. Developers, evangelists, and liquidity providers can be found by creating a community. 

The reason communities work so well is that many users can come together and share thoughts, learn more about the project, and engage with the founders. Platforms like Telegram and Discord are the most popular for building crypto communities.

The network effect is another factor when it comes to the success of a crypto project. A network effect is when a good or service gains more value as more people use it. For example, the more users a cryptocurrency gains, the more tools, and platforms are needed. This attracts builders to the project, who build new decentralized applications (dapps), platforms, protocols, projects, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), decentralized finance (DeFi) tools, and more. Communities help build up the ecosystem of a blockchain-based project, attracting more users and so on.

The network impact of a community depends on its size and the closeness of its members, as well as the value of the group member's interactions. This is why founders need to interact with their community members and appoint community managers and moderators to nurture the growing community. 

Telegram is the most popular application for building crypto communities and major organizations in the space are working to support its decentralized community, The Open Network (TON). DWF Labs, a blockchain industry market maker, has become a prominent supporter of the TON ecosystem. Through its partnership with the TON Foundation, DWF Labs supports The Open Network with investment, token development, market creation, and exchange listing. 

DWF Labs commits to allocating $10m to support the growing TON ecosystem. In addition, a total of 50 seed investments are scheduled over the next 12 months. Every investment is designed to accelerate the growth of TON and its projects. 

Furthermore, DWF Labs intends to increase the number of TON ecosystem participants by improving the TONcoin volume across supporting platforms. Currently, TONcoin has a trading volume of up to $20 million. That number will double within the first three months of the partnership.

Afterward, DWF Labs will work towards increasing the volume further. A reliable OTC market will be developed to let buyers and sellers complete large transactions. DWF Labs and TON will embark on a long-term partnership featuring extensive cooperation between TON and DWF Labs. 

Partnering with DWF Labs is the latest milestone for the TON Foundation. Earlier, they achieved cooperation with Huobi Group and KuCoin Ventures. In addition, the TON ecosystem notes accelerating growth, with TON Sites and TON proxy being the latest additions. Those two features and tools are crucial to unlocking the future of a decentralized internet.

These releases follow the announcement of an updated @wallet bot in Telegram from independent TON developers. It enables the creation of a P2P cryptocurrency marketplace and is a step towards the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology by ordinary users. Also, Telegram recently launched a tokenized username marketplace built on the TON blockchain.

How communities can help a project succeed

Due to the decentralized nature of blockchain projects, the community also plays a part in the success and health of the project. For example, a community full of builders and evangelists will be partly responsible for the success of a project. On the other hand, a toxic community can attract exploiters who aim to take advantage of other users, leading to a project's downfall due to malicious applications within the ecosystem or mismanagement by toxic managers.

Crypto communities contain people from all backgrounds and act as the ecosystem's public face, conveying to the world why a certain project is important. They can also create content that guides users on navigating through the ecosystem, using the project's tokens, using the various tools within the ecosystem, etc.

For a blockchain project to succeed, it is important to get the community involved by asking for feedback, feature requests, asking about pain points, and more. These interactions will give founders access to valuable data and help them improve their projects and iron out any kinks they may have missed.

One of the best things about crypto communities is the low barrier to entry. Users just need to download an app like Telegram, Discord, and even Twitter in some cases to join in. For Telegram and Discord communities, users will need an invite link which can be easily obtained from a project's website or Twitter page.

Crypto communities also make it easier for new members to learn about a project and how it works by speaking with other members of the group. Crowdsourcing is another benefit of crypto communities, enabling founders to raise funds by giving their community members access to token sales. These token sales can raise much-needed funds for a project while rewarding community members with a token that may appreciate in value if the project succeeds.

Governance also plays a role when it comes to crypto communities. For example, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) can be formed, allowing members to have a say in managing a project. DAOs typically give voting rights to users in the form of tokens, with larger token holders having more voting power. 

Conclusion

The importance of a crypto community cannot be understated. Community members consist of users, builders, developers, and evangelists who all play a critical role in the adoption and success of a project. Many users and investors first heard about crypto online from friends or strangers. Fostering a strong community should be one of the main objectives for any blockchain project.